by Nicholas Valenzuela

Despite competition from gaming industry giants like Nintendo and Ubisoft, individual games continue to take over the market.

Gaming has become a large part of this world’s culture. It is no longer a thing for nerds who sit in the basement and play alone; it has become part of mainstream media. The gaming industry is absolutely massive and worth lots of money.

Unfortunately, companies see this and just want a quick buck, leading them to put out soulless slop disguised as games. On the contrary, independent game developers, called indie developers, have been flooding the scene with beloved games made with passion.

Since the beginning of 2024, there have been many high-profile flops for many game companies. One of the biggest companies to flop was Ubisoft, with their live service pirate game, Skull and Bones. 

Skull and Bones was said to be one of the first quadruple-A games. When It came out, however, it was riddled with bugs and microtransactions that annoyed the players of the game – especially since the game already had a high price. It drew inspiration from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. 

Following its release, a Ubisoft Executive commented that “one of the things [Ubisoft] saw is that gamers are used to […] having and owning their games. That’s the consumer shift that needs to happen.”

It sparked a lot of controversy online, with many online users feeling angry that the idea was suggested, with some even saying that “if buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.”

Some of the most popular games of this decade, including League of Legends, Valorant, and Fortnite, are known as “massively multiplayer online” (MMO) games, which require live servers for online play. If the companies behind these games decide to shut down the servers, the games will be unavailable to players and users. 

For free games, this isn’t a huge issue. However, it becomes a huge disadvantage when users pay over $60 for a game only for it to be unplayable. 

Another controversy in the gaming world has to do with gaming subscriptions. These include Nintendo’s online subscription, which is needed to play certain multiplayer games on Nintendo consoles. If a user doesn’t opt into the subscription, they cannot play the game if it’s all multiplayer. Other game companies offer a monthly price for a library of playable games, costing $10-20 on average.

Modern gaming companies like Ubisoft and Nintendo often see games or series as cash cows, producing many games in the series in very little time. Most notably, Nintendo would often release a new Pokémon game every other year, and have now shifted to adding downloads called “downloadable content” (DLC), which adds even more money on top of the money users are already spending.

On top of this, sports games such as NBA 2K are known for very greedy behaviors when it comes to video games. Most sports games have a new game released every year, but the only notable changes to the games are the new name and updated rosters. People still buy the games, leading to the companies thinking that it’s acceptable to pump them out constantly.

The biggest competition to triple-A games aren’t other companies; it’s indie games. Indie games are often developed by a single person or a small team of artists, programmers and others. The big difference between indie games and complete games is the passion.

When indie games are produced, the work by a small team or a single person having to put in so much time, effort and money into a singular game shows in the result. One can feel the love and hard work put in, since these games focus on making fans happy, leading to huge groups of supporters for the developers. 

A good example of this is Stardew Valley, which came out in 2016. It was developed by one man, Eric Barone, and has sold over 41 million copies in its lifespan. Despite being an older game, it keeps receiving constant updates that have effectively doubled the playtime at no cost for the player. Although he’s working on a new game, Eric Barone continues to update his game and show love to his community.

Indie games really started entering the main scene with the game Lethal Company. Lethal Company is a cooperative horror game, where the player takes the role of an employee working for a company, going to abandoned moons of planets to collect materials to sell to meet an assigned quota. The horror of the game comes from the monsters that inhabit the moons and planets. They range from a bug who steals stuff from players to a giant robot who tries to blow the player up. The range of different enemies makes sure that something unexpected can happen in every play session.

The game quickly blew up and became an overnight hit, gaining traction as a fun game with friends, with many online content creators making content on the video game. Indie games often advertise through content creators, who often shine a huge light on games that would otherwise be shunned or hidden from view.

The Game Awards have a whole section dedicated to indie games, showing how indie games are making a wave in the gaming industry. The biggest stand out from The Game Awards in 2024 was an indie game and one of the biggest hits in recent history, Balatro.

Balatro was made by a single person in Canada. It takes inspiration from poker, having a standard 52-card deck and making the player use poker hands to get chips and defeat bosses. The player can edit the decks by adding or taking cards and can get jokers that improve the number of chips one gets.

It won three awards at the aforementioned ceremony: Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game and Best Mobile Game. Additionally, it was nominated for two other awards. It was a huge success and gained traction very quickly for its addicting, surprisingly complex gameplay and the mesmerizing music. 

Indie games continue to shake up the gaming scene and show what true passion can lead to. It can lead to money and fame, but most importantly, it leads to millions of people enjoying one’s hard work, and that’s a beautiful thing.